It's now official—the full title of the film is X2: X-Men United. And director Bryan Singer is reportedly within two days of his final cut for the movie.
The film will run 135 minutes, a half-hour longer than the original. Plot details (provided by a FilmJerk insider) are as follows.
WARNING!!!!!!! MAJOR PLOT SPOILER!!!!!!
"The sequel revolves around the continued efforts of those in society who fear and distrust mutants trying to quarantine them from the public. The anti-mutant cause grows stronger following an failed attack on the President of the United States by an assailant possessing extraordinary abilities to teleport at will, renewing the political and public outcry for both a Mutant Registration Act.
"A vocal and wealthy military man, William Stryker is rumored to have experimented on mutants, somehow tied to Wolverine's mysterious and forgotten past. As Wolverine searches for clues to his origin, Stryker puts into motion his anti-mutant program, launching a severe attack on Professor Xavier's mansion.
"Magneto, newly escaped from his plastic prison, proposes a partnership with Professor Xavier and the X-Men to combat their common and formidable enemy... Stryker.
Jean Grey will reportedly die in the third act of the film, setting up the plot of the next film (perhaps the Phoenix storyline Singer favors).
Look for Fox product tie-ins with Baskin-Robbins, Dr. Pepper, Kraft, Mazda, Radio Shack, and Wal-Mart.
There’s also new trailers showing on TV that show Wolverine getting hit by darts during the X-Mansion invasion, Bobby forming an ice wall, and Bobby and Storm looking over some new uniforms on the Blackbird X-Jet. Bobby asks when he’ll get his uniform and Wolverine tells him ‘not yet.’
Plus, check out more on the Bobby/Rogue romance on this clip: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x2/clips/. It also shows Pyro (Aaron Stanford, pictured above) showing off his power.
X2 writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty told Hollywood Reporter:
"The way the development process worked was very, very informal," Dougherty said. "We turned in hundreds of drafts just to Bryan. He's so involved in the story and the development of the screenplay that we were giving him a new script (with) a couple of drafts every week."
"Working with Bryan is a collaboration that takes place all day long every day," Harris said. "Every time a new scene is put together it's shown to him and every time a new idea is (thought of it's) presented to him. We talk about everything and everything is developed before it gets officially released in a draft. This wasn't any type of normal writing situation where we would turn in a draft to the studio and then get notes back. It was just pure collaboration with everybody."